Fantasy Premier League Tips: The Importance Of Balance On Your FPL Team

Those of you familiar with the independent film of the early 80’s may recall a documentary titled Koyaanisqatsi. It was a mesmerizing journey through the impact of man on the earth throughout our history, featuring some beautiful images, while many of them were grim. The film title is derived from a phrase used by the Hopi tribe that means “life out of balance”. If you are anything like me, you are facing a daily battle of maintaining balance in your life, typically with mixed results.

So maybe you let your bills pile up for too long, or you neglect your yard maintenance for too long or your exercise routine does not validate the mandatory two doughnut per day requirement necessary to perform daily life functions. By the way, when I say “you”, I am obviously referring to myself. I admittedly suffer from “life out of balance”. But that does not mean I cannot find an alternative universe where I am able to balance things more efficiently and can be rewarded for my discipline and equilibrium. There is always Fantasy Premier League (FPL).

Today I want to emphasize the importance of balance in the maintenance of your FPL team. This is a concept that will include some examples but the idea in general is what’s important. First, I think it best to break down your budget as applied to your positions. This is generally where I feel money should be spent, using a £100.0m budget as a measuring stick:

Keepers: £9-10.5 mil

Defenders: £25-27 mil

Midfielders: £37-39 mil

Attackers: £29-31 mil

Now if you add up the lowest number from each position, you arrive at £100m. The additional range is meant to imply that you should be wary of spending any more than that listed limit for fear of taking too much funding away from another area. It also compensates for managers growing team value as the season rolls along, and those additional funds can be allocated as such.

Here is a breakdown of individual slots at each position.

Keeper - Unless there is an injury and a 4.0 backup emerges, all starting keepers range from a price of 4.5m to 6.5m. You either take the minimum, two rotating 4.5 keepers for 9m, or the maximum, an elite every week starter at 6.5m and a non-playing cheapie at 4.0m, maxing you out at the 10.5 limit.

To me, you take two solid defenders in that 6.5-5.5 range that you intend to play every week. When one of these players hits a tough run of fixtures, use a transfer to a find a monetarily similar replacement. Then you opt for two 4.5 defenders that rotate nicely to fill that required 3rd defender spot. Finally a dirt cheap fill in 4.0m option that can free up the budget and will rarely feature in your XI.

Midfielder - 5 more positional breakdowns:

MID1: 10m, MID2: 9m, MID3: 8m, MID4: 5m MID5: 5m–TOTAL: £37m

This budget allocation allows for premium mids as long as you can find those bargain 5m options on the back end. This season, there has been plenty of those; Aaron Ramsey, Ross Barkley, Robbie Brady, all started the season at 5.0-5.5m, and are atop the leaderboard at the position at the moment. These are guys you usually will want to hang on to for as long as possible (except for Brady, now, who is injured for 4-6 weeks), focusing your transfers on the more expensive mids where their price means they need to be in form to justify the money. Maybe you feel you need Michu, perhaps David Silva has been letting you down. Keeping 27m always amongst your top 3 mids ensures you have the cash to bring in a heavy hitter.

Forward - 3 more to go:

FWD1: 12m, FWD2: 10m, FWD3: 7mil

All the cost cutting that causes managers headaches in the other positions is done for one important reason: to be able to own whoever you want at the 3 coveted forward positions. This is where a team can most likely suffer Koyaanisqatsi, and fall out of balance. One common scenario is the manager that put too much into his forwards, he went RVP, Aguero, Suarez. Well, now he wants Lukaku because he is looking the business at 7.5m. Simples, bring in Lukaku for Suarez and pocket around 4m. The tendency for this manager is to look at his current squad and think, “I can use this 4 million and upgrade my worthless 4m defender to Leighton Baines!” Problem is, now you’ve thrown a ton of cash into defense, and this unbalanced spiral begins. Eventually, you want Suarez back without dropping Aguero or RVP for him. Where did that extra 4 mil go? Now you are looking at multiple transfers just to get back the guy you had to begin with.

Long story short, accept the fact that you can only own one, maybe two elite strikers at a time. Just pick the right ones! If you have the discipline, you will always keep enough in the bank to make a switch to any striker you want in one transfer rather than taking hits.

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